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Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 8 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 8 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 8 2 Kings 2.1–14 Galatians 5.1, 13–25 Luke 9.51–end ‘Leave the dead to bury their dead.’ One of Jesus’ starkest commands, this flies in the face of the sacred Jewish obligation to attend to the burial of one’s father ahead of all other duties, even saying one’s daily praye…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Fourth Sunday of Easter Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Fourth Sunday of Easter Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Fourth Sunday of Easter - Year A Acts 2.42–47 1 Peter 2.19–25 John 10.1–10 A student of mine spent a long vacation working with local churches in central Africa. Next term, the College Head asked him, in my presence, what he wanted to do with his degree. ‘Work in third world …
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Fourth Sunday of Lent Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Fourth Sunday of Lent Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Fourth Sunday of Lent Joshua 5.9–12 2 Corinthians 5.16–end Luke 15.1–3, 11b–end At Gilgal the Israelites, like the prodigal, exchanged the food of the wilderness for the food of home. In a dense little scene, explicable only in its wider context, the covenant signs come rushi…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Third Sunday of Easter Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Third Sunday of Easter Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Third Sunday of Easter - Year A Acts 2.14a, 36–41 1 Peter 1.17–23 Luke 24.13–35 Today’s readings bubble over with the excitement of the new moment that has dawned in Israel’s story, in the world’s story, with the resurrection. It isn’t merely that God is offering a new kind o…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Third Sunday of Advent Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Third Sunday of Advent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
Third Sunday of Advent - Year A Isaiah 35: 1-10 James 5: 7-10 Matthew 11: 2-11 One of the recently edited Dead Sea Scrolls (no. 521 of the Cave 4 collection, if anyone out there wants the reference) contains a portrait of the coming Messiah that, like Matthew 11, looks back to Is…
Lent for Everyone Year A - Saturday: Week 3 in Lent Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Saturday: Week 3 in Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
WEEK 3: SATURDAY Matthew 18; focused on 18.21–35 There are at least three levels at which we should read this sharp and startling story. And at least three levels at which we should apply it to our lives, not least our lives in church. Start, though, with Peter’s question. It see…
Lent for Everyone Year A - Friday: Week 3 in Lent Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Friday: Week 3 in Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
WEEK 3: FRIDAY Matthew 17; focused on 17.14 –20 Once more we come close to Jesus in the crowd; and this time let’s bring with us someone we know, perhaps someone very close to us, who is in serious need of Jesus’ help. Take a moment and think who you want to bring. Let’s recall w…
Lent for Everyone Year A - Tuesday: Third Week in Lent Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Tuesday: Third Week in Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
WEEK 3: TUESDAY Matthew 15.1–20; focused on 15.1– 9 Germs and Jesus!’ shouted the seven-year-old son of a friend of mine. ‘Germs and Jesus! You keep telling me they’re important and I can’t see either of them!’ A fascinating response to a pressing parental problem. We tell our…
Lent for Everyone Year A - Wednesday: Third Week in lent Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Wednesday: Third Week in lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
WEEK 3: WEDNESDAY Matthew 15.21–38; focused on 15.21–28 Let’s listen in on this conversation. Stand in the crowd and see what you think. We’re up north now, away from Galilee. Jesus has already spoken of this region (‘the district of Tyre and Sidon’) in such a way as to make it…
Lent for Everyone Year A - Tuesday: Fifth Week in Lent Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Tuesday: Fifth Week in Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
WEEK 5: TUESDAY Matthew 24; focused on 24.45 –51 I vividly remember my first experience of working on a building site. I was a student, earning some money during the vacation. The work was physically hard – or rather, it would have been if we had kept it up all day. There was a…
Lectionary Reflections Year A - The Second Sunday Before Lent Year A
Lectionary Reflections Year A - The Second Sunday Before Lent Year A
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Second Sunday Before Lent - Year A Genesis 1.1–23 Romans 8.18–25 Matthew 6.25–34 Today’s Gospel reading reminds us how important it is not simply to take all passages of Scripture and apply them directly to ourselves, as though they had no original context and no intervening …
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Christ the King Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Christ the King Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Christ the King Jeremiah 23.1–6 Colossians 1.11–20 Luke 23.33–43 Today’s passages might, on a superficial reading, simply be making the fairly standard point that Christ’s kingship and authority are a challenge to most human understandings of power. That’s a good and important po…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 7 Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 7 Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 7 Isaiah 65.1–9 Galatians 3.23–9 Luke 8.26–39 The people in today’s reading from Isaiah have apparently got bored with the true God. The chapter opens with God waiting patiently, almost passively, for his people to come looking for him. When they don’t, God begins to call …
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 9 Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 9 Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 9 Isaiah 66.10–14 Galatians 6.1–16 Luke 10.1–11, 16–20 Luke 8—10 sets out a very interesting mission strategy. In chapter 8, Jesus himself goes through towns and villages, curing people, and gathering huge crowds to hear his stories and see his miracles. Then in chapter 9,…
Lectionary Reflections Year A - The Fifth Sunday of Easter Year A
Lectionary Reflections Year A - The Fifth Sunday of Easter Year A
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Fifth Sunday of Easter - Year A Acts 7.55–60 1 Peter 2.2–10 John 14.1–14 What are we Christians supposed to feel about the world we live in? All three of today’s readings suggest that, at the very least, the world is not our home. Stephen dies as though death is irrelevant, w…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 23 Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 23 Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 23 2 Kings 5.1–3, 7–15c 2 Timothy 2.8–15 Luke 17.11–19 The story of Naaman has got everything. To begin with, the hero is a thoroughly likeable character. (Well, I suppose you could argue that Elisha is the real hero of the story, and no one could call him exactly likeable…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 22 Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 22 Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 22 Habakkuk 1.1–4; 2.1–4 2 Timothy 1.1–14 Luke 17.5–10 This central section of Luke’s Gospel is full of very uncomfortable reading. It starts at 9.51, when Jesus ‘set his face to go to Jerusalem’, and the ministry enters a new phase. Now everything he says and does is bein…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 21 Year C